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Week 51. Holiday Events. Where did your family gather for the Christmas or Hanukkah as a child? Which family members and friends attended the event?

As I was growing up we would celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. We would gather around the tree and then read the Christmas story from Luke 2: 1-20. Then we would open our gifts. Hearing this story will always be an important part of my Christmas. The next morning we would have the stockings which usually had an orange and some candy. Most years we celebrated with our immediate family, after my sister married and had children we would celebrate with them.

As my sister married into the Catholic faith, that is when I hear about Christmas Eve services as they celebrated with Midnight Mass. It was after I was married that other faiths started celebrating with the Candlelight Service for Christmas Eve.

Over the years that has also become an important part of my Christmas celebration. Partly because I am a participant in the service, and partly because it reminds me of the reason we celebrate. Due to illness this was the first year in many that I was unable to attend the service.

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Week 50. Holiday Gifts. Describe any memorable Christmas or Hanukkah gifts you received as a child.

A couple of gifts that I remember, one is the rocker I received as a child. Here is the post about this gift.

Another gift I remember is one that hurt my feelings. As a teen our emotions were all over the place. That year at school I received a toy for my gift. Everyone else had received more personal gifts. That is a gift I will not forget, but I can not dwell on it. I just want to try to make my gifts appropriate for the occasion.

The first year we were married, for Christmas my husband took a ring that had lost the pearl, and had it reset for my present. That was a special gift.

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Today I received a packet of information about my Great Grandfather William Voss and his wife Marie (Mary) Flagel. I had been contacted to see if I was still interested in a Voss-Flagel connection. Of course, I was. It has only been in the past 3 years that I had found the name of my Great-Grandfather Voss, I knew his wife’s name, but not his first name. Now I have William’s parents, and Marie’s father, so may be someday I will find another generation.

The information that was shared confirmed the story of my Grandfather and his brother coming over to the United States with his mother and a stepfather, which is all I knew.

I had come to the conclusion that William had died about 1868, this has been confirmed, and it also includes the birth, baptism and marriage records for William and the children.

What I received today, I am savoring as I look over the information, that takes me back another generation for my father’s side of the tree. I do ‘love’ the fact that they don’t have just a first and middle name, but about 5 names which adds to the confusion.

I am so grateful to Art for sharing this information, and will be working on updating my information. Of course I am sharing the descendents of Charles Martin Voss with him.